What Grandma Teaches
January 20, 2011
In the next three months I will be officially entering into my mid-to-late twenties. At this age, both of my parents had already completed graduate degrees, were married, and starting their exciting careers in the foreign service and clinical psychological. In many ways, they were a sort of A-Team, ready to take on whatever challenge life threw them. Not too much time later, they would have two children.
How did they do it?…
One day, I asked my grandmother this question. Despite spending more years on this earth than me, she would not answer. Her warm smile and gentle hug reasserted how much of a child she perceived me to be. It was done much in the same way that an adult responds to a five-year-old asking for the guidebook to drive Daddy’s car. Except that in her youth, such a thing belonged only to the politically favored few of a corrupt and fascist country.
Was this the dream her generation had hoped for their grandchildren? Immigrating to the United States at a late age, they sacrificed the comforts of an upper-middle class home across the Atlantic in hopes that their children would benefit from living in a freer society with more economic opportunity-and in the process prosper more than they could back at the mothership.
My generation in contrast is materialistically and economically better off than perhaps beyond the elderly’s wildest dreams. And yet, I can not help but notice that something is missing in our collective conscious. Grandma at my age was gracefully undertaking more responsibilities than any of us could dream of-and while hair, makeup and clothing are impeccably kept. She was a feminine goddess, capable of facing the worst humanity had to offer without complaints and immense stoic fortitude. The whining, spoiled teenagers of modern society simply would not have stood a chance next to her. Although our parents have opened the doors for more education, food and toys than ever before, her inner strength, humility and common sense are nowhere to be seen.
Where have we gone wrong? And how can we bring back this once common knowledge on how to manage everyday life?
Through this blog, I hope to answer these questions on what has become a personal quest to emulate these successful women after years of being rudderless- with a little help from the family matriarch.
